The Ethics of Digital Photo Manipulation

Posted on 12. Aug, 2009 by Paul Burwell in Everything, Photography

(Originally published in Outdoor Photography Canada Magazine)

Many individuals are immediately sceptical when viewing images in the digital age. The ethics of digital photo manipulation is increasingly important to the digital photographer. It turns out that this concern is fully warranted but I personally draw a distinction between digital manipulation in documentary photography and photography as art.

Lincoln's Head on John Calhoun's Body

Photo manipulation has been happening since the medium was invented in the 1800’s. One of the most famous images of US President Lincoln is actually a composite of Lincoln’s head pasted onto John Calhoun’s body. Former USSR dictator Stalin routinely removed his enemies from photographs by having them air-brushed out. More recent manipulations include a TV Guide cover with Oprah Winfrey’s head being substituted on Ann-Margret’s body and a photo that won an award as “one of the most impressive news photos of 2006” of antelope crossing under an elevated bullet train in China later being revealed as a composite of the antelope running merged with another image of the elevated train.

Oprah's head on Ann Margaret's body

Most of my photography is used as art in one form or another. When I’m working on an image as art I try to make photographs that are visually and artistically compelling. All images are an interpretation of reality and are subject to the limits of the technology used. Therefore, when my photographs are used for artful purposes, I have no issues with reinterpreting reality. 100% of these photographs are touched, in one way or another, in photo editing software. Usually, that digital touch is limited to cropping, dust removal and contrast and colour saturation adjustments. However, if the situation warrants, I have no issues with dramatically reinterpreting the colours, key elements and composition of a photograph in order to make a more artistic image that tells a compelling story.

Running Fox Kit - Before Alterations

Fox kit walking over the top of a hill - Retouched Image

My argument is that a photograph made for artistic purposes is an art form and must be subject to the freedoms that the description implies. Artists, including painters and sculptors, routinely create a representation that differs from reality. And where that artist thinks nothing of adding, excluding or enhancing elements from the original scene, I feel the artistic photographer should be afforded the same latitude.[nggallery id=6]

Documentary and news photography is another issue altogether. When I create an image that is used for this purpose my ethics allow very little digital manipulation. I do not fundamentally alter the image by adding, removing, enhancing or de-emphasizing any of the key elements of a photograph. Adjustments made to a documentary image go no further than cropping, basic contrast and colour saturation adjustments and some basic sharpening.

The National Press Photographers Association agrees with this point of view. The NPAA has a code of ethics and it, in part, reads “Accurate representation is the benchmark of our profession. We believe photojournalistic guidelines for fair and accurate reporting should be the criteria for judging what may be done electronically to a photograph. Altering the editorial content … is a breach of the ethical standards recognized by the NPPA.”

Ethics are a deeply personal matter. For me, it boils down to intent and usage. Journalistic use of photos can only be subject to the simplest adjustments presenting a fair representation of the scene as captured with no intent to deceive. The artistic photo created by a skilled photographer and artist captures both the spirit and essence of a scene that allows those elements to be transferred to the viewer.

Feel free to disagree (or agree) with me. Post your thoughts here for us all to share.

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Tags: digital, ethics, manipulation, photo

10 Responses to “The Ethics of Digital Photo Manipulation”

G Dan Mitchell

12. Aug, 2009

I share your willingness to post-process, your awareness that this is nothing new, and your comfort with the subject in most cases.

I have a different perspective on at least one reason that post-processing is not only appropriate but perhaps necessary. This has to do with the differences between the way we view the original subject with our own visual system and the best way to translate that experience or a close equivalent to a print.

One example – the eye is capable of handling a much wider dynamic range in a scene than the camera. For one thing, as we scan the scene with our eyes the puplls contract and expand to adjust to the light levels as needed. While there might be a very bright cloud in the sky, when your gaze goes to the shadows under the tree your pupils expand and the shadows reveal detail.

The camera does not do this – it uses the same aperture for the entire scene. For this reason the result it produces is NOT realistic, at least not if we judge “realistic” to mean what we are used to seeing with our eyes. To compensate and create a photographic rendition of the scene that is more or less equivalent to the experience of viewing the actual scene we must post-process, for example by using GND filters or otherwise compensating for the large dynamic range.

A similar process is at work regarding focus. When we look at a scene that includes both close and far elements using our eyes, everything seems to be in focus – because our eyes adjust, seemingly instantaneously, to the focus for the element of the scene that we currently look at. If we want all parts of such a scene to be equivalently in focus we resort to creating an objectively unrealistic version of the scene with very deep depth of field.

There are a whole range of other examples I could provide, but in a sense what we are trying to do when we post-process in many cases is actually create a more realistic and believable version of the scene than we would achieve without post-processing.

Dan

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Matt Needham

13. Aug, 2009

The only thing that changes is the technology. The debate about manipulation, what manipulations we should be worried about (consider the radical distortion of time and 3 dimensional space that is intrinsic in every photograph) has been going on since the beginning. The photojournalists keep documenting, and the artists keep creating, and every one of them has an individual set of rules, different from the next, that they think defines “real photography”. Some folks confuse photographs with truth, but it’s always been realism not reality.

“In the very beginning, when the operator controls and regulates his time of exposure, when in the dark room the developer is mixed for detail, breath, flatness or contrast, faking has been resorted to. In fact every photograph is a fake from start to finish, a purely impersonal, unmanipulated photograph being practically impossible. When all is said, it still remains entirely a matter of degree and ability.” – Edward Steichen (about 100 years ago)

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Rich Charpentier

14. Aug, 2009

Paul,

As usual, your posts are some of the best around. I check here often to see what’s next on your site, and I was happy to find a new post this morning.

Only a few years ago I had never used Photoshop. Then a good friend, Bert Gildart, told me that his images that appear in magazines are normally retouched and that’s part of the process.

If it’s photo journalistic I agree, it should be accurate. And if it’s for artistic purposes, I say enjoy making your art!

Thanks for your insights.

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Lynn Smith

17. Aug, 2009

I come here often just to get your point of view. Great article! I use photoshop with my photography , I feel it is part of my tools I work with. ( just like lenses, filters, or flash.

If I was taking images for a news paper it can not be altered in any way.

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Tom Peterson

18. Aug, 2009

Saw your blog post and it cracked me up. I just did a similar post last month http://kayviewgallery.blogspot.com/2009/07/believing-lies_20.html . I too maintain that there is a difference between “art” and reality or photojournalism. The people who are peevish about making artistic interpertations had better stay away from paint artists.

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Emily Atkinson

02. Sep, 2009

I completely agree with you in terms of photography as an art. I am currently writing an essay about the ethics of photo-manipulation and through my research I found your website. While reading through I was amazed how well your blog reflected/reflects my own thoughts. The people in the world who are completely against photo manipulation frustrate me to no end as they do not understand that photography is, in essence, an art! Even photojournalism is an art as photographers capture scenes that they believe portray the story they want to tell whether their story is a correct representation of a situation or not. In this digital age people need to accept that photographs are often manipulated, look at every photograph they see with a degree of scepticism and move on with their lives “Don’t believe everything you read”… or see

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